printWrites Daniel Pipes: The real winner was the politically and personally unpredictable figure, Avigdor Lieberman, 50, of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party, who raised the specter of the country’s increasingly hostile Arab citizens:
“Tzipi Livni, the head of the Kadima party, can credibly claim victory in the elections on Tuesday because her party won the most seats. Binyamin Netanyahu of the Likud party can also claim victory as the head of the largest party in the larger of the two coalitions, the national camp.
Both Livni and Netanyahu can plausibly claim ‘I won’ the elections this week – but neither did.
But the real winner was the politically and personally unpredictable figure, Avigdor Lieberman, 50, of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. A Moldovan immigrant who started his career in Likud and as then served as director-general of Netanyahu’s prime ministerial office, he founded Yisrael Beiteinu in 1999.
Lieberman has introduced a new issue into Israeli domestic politics – the place of the country’s Arab citizens. Noting their increasingly public disloyalty to the state, he has argued that they should lose their citizenship and their right to live in Israel unless they declare their loyalty to the Jewish state.
This topic has clearly struck a nerve among the Israeli Jewish electorate and prompted responsible Arab voices to acknowledge that Israeli Arabs have ‘managed to make the Jewish public hate us.’ As I wrote in 2006, Israel’s ‘final enemy’ may finally, be joining the battle. The consequences of this for the Arab-Israeli conflict as a whole could well be profound.”
By Daniel Pipes, Wednesday 11, Feb 2009
Related: “When I Am The Stronger, I Take Away Your Freedom, Because That Is My Principle”
Update (Feb 12): In response to the always provocative Myron hereunder: As a classical liberal, I’m wary of conflating the vote, for what it’s worth, with natural rights. I agree with you that the latter must be inviolable. But the vote? That’s a political right. Neither is citizenship a natural right. Talk about taking away property or denying due process: those are unconscionable, and violate natural rights.
Preventing more hostile Arabs from migrating into Israel proper is perfectly legitimate in natural law. It’s non-aggressive self-defense.
The Israel election between NETANYAHU/LIKUD – realistic/cynical about “peace” with the Palestinians but idealistic/unrealistic enough to want to pursue them indefinitely until a “victory” has been achieved VS LIVNI/KADIMA – naively idealistic about the “peace” process but realistic enough to not want to continue indefinite wars of attrition in Gaza to achieve some pyrrhic “victory”. Avigdor Lieberman would also take the vote away from the ultra-Orthodox who won’t serve in the Army as well as “disloyal” Arabs. My preference is to live in an America based on liberty than countries based on ethnicity, religion, or mindless military servitude. Of course, current America doesn’t live up to the ideal as politicians and judges have corrupted and perverted our constitution with the consent of the sheeple (Abe 200th birthday Lincoln’s) “government of the people”. Israel Arabs supporting Hamas have helped to create the Lieberman phenomena but the idea of conditional citizenship where rights are defined by politicians rather than being inherent is a dangerous road. What next – Shas will demand taking the vote away from anyone eating a pork chop or wearing a miniskirt as being “disloyal to Judaism”? “We had to destroy Israel in order to save it??!!”